Blogger Tips

9.10.2012

10 Best Free Photo Editors

When I started blogging, I didn't know much about blogging. I am not really sure how it happened except that I saw a commercial about someone blogging and I wondered what it was so I googled blogging and Blogger came up. I went to check it out and before I knew it I was deep into the bloggy world. With this post I am now at 112 posts! I have learned so much over the past years and helped so many others start their blogs that I thought I would share a bit of that knowledge with you. I have discovered some websites and blogs that have been so helpful for me in creating my blogs. Moving on to those great sites. I will start with picture editing in this post. I have found several editing places that all have their own appeal and I use them all for different reasons. The first is Picasa. If you use blogger as your blog platform then you have a Picasa account whether you realize it or not because that is where all your blogger photos are hosted. I encourage you to go to the Picasa website and download their software today (unless you are blessed with Photoshop) This is a great picture editing and storage site. It has sharing and editing capabilities that I make use of on a regular basis. It is the picture software that I use most on my blog pictures. The best news about it is that it is free. They also have many useful capabilities in the web storage part of their site. You can purchase additional storage space on Picasa for a small fee. It took me a couple of years before I needed to purchase more space on Picasa for my blog and I post lots of photos. The purchase price has been worth every penny because I can access it from so many websites where I need my pictures. It also links with my Google+ account which is just one more reason for me to stick with them.

Image edited using iPiccy

My next Go to Picture editing site is iPiccy. It is a fun place to alter and enhance your photos. I could play there all day long with all the options they give. It is an online photo editing site (so nothing to download except your edited photos) The photo above was edited on iPiccy. I used the same photo so you could see the difference. This one is free too!

Image edited using PicMonkey

Next is PicMonkey. PicMonkey is another fun place to spend some time playing...uhmmmm...I mean working. It is free and there is no registration required. How great is that? I like the texture overlay choices they offer, the frames, and the choices they offer to make picture collages. If I decided to make one of those blogger headers or facebook cover photos that had more than one photo then PicMonkey is probably where I would do it.

Image edited using Pixlr

Pixlr is another fun place. It gives you a choice of playful, efficient, or advanced photo editing. The choices are mind boggling with their sheer volume. There are Pixlr apps for both Iphone and Android. You can also add a photo grabber to your Chrome extensions so that you can quickly grab a photo or screen shot off the web. It is also an online photo editor.

Photo edited using FotoFlexer

If you want ease of use for accessing your photos from multiple places across the web then FotoFlexer is your place. FotoFlexer offers lots of options including animated stickers and you can access several popular photo storage websites.

Edited using LunaPic

If you have wondered how people add the animations to their pictures such as water reflections, or sparkles or such then LunaPic is your answer. LunaPic has a huge list of animations and effects that you can edit your pics with. It is an online editor so no software downloads. They also give you the option of saving your picture to several websites as well as your computer.

Edited using piZap

A great place to make cover photos for your facebook account and to do lots of other edits to your photos is piZap. piZap gives you the opportunity to see exactly how it will look on your facebook profile, even with your profile picture in place before you save it, which will save you much time trying to position it perfectly. They have lots of effects, fonts, frames and other goodies to offer with their online editor.

Edited using Tuxpi

Tuxpi photo editor is another fun place to change your photos. It has many unique frames, and effects such as the painted on the wall effect above and the brush strokes frame above. Tuxpi is a fairly simplistic editor but fun none the less and has additional photo montage choices that I have not seen elsewhere.I haven't quite convinced myself to make the leap to Photoshop yet because I have found so many great free sites. One of those that rivals Photoshop is GIMP. This site is for those of you who like to control more of the details and want to work with layers and who want to do more manipulating of your pictures like taking out backgrounds or changing the colors completely, etc. You can find tons of free brushes, actions, and tutorials all over the web for GIMP which will add to your overall experience. This software must be downloaded and is not for the faint of heart because it takes a bit to learn how to do it. Be sure to check YouTube for tutorials on this one.

Edited using WaterMarquee

I have recently discovered Water Marquee . I have learned that it is is a great place to add water marks to your photos. With Pinterest, which I enjoy and all the other image gathering sites, it has become even more important for bloggers to watermark their photos. That will help keep the scraping done by other bloggers who don't want to do their own work from stealing yours. Water Marquee makes it easy to get your photos from Picasa, Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr

There you have it: The 10 Best Free Photo Editors that I have come across at this point in time. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.